Take What I Give
by crystalcloud
Summary: OneShot: Post War where Hermione is waiting for death, but who can offer her salvation? Please R&R!


Hi everyone! This is yet another one of my HGDM one shots and I hope you like it. It's a little teary from Hermione's point of view and it switches POV a couple of times between Draco and Hermione, but I hope you can understand it.

Well here it is then, please don't forget to review!

………………………………………………………………………………………………..

Inoculation. That's what she needed; to be immunised from heart break. She craved the feeling of safety and longed for the comfort of a friend.

She felt incarcerated by her fears and nightmares that continued to give her no peace. How pitiful life seemed now, that her friends were gone and she had nothing to sustain her.

Each day, death drew nearer, breathing down her neck and waiting, snickering in the corner. But he never claimed her, always teasing, taunting, and never releasing her from the incessant vapid hours of the days.

There was no reason why death should be waiting, no reason why she needed to be here while her friends waited for her in the twilight kingdom; and yet he did.

A thought would sometimes occur to her, to make the move herself; force death to take her away. But that was always quietened by another voice, the pride and reason inside.

Reason. Such a lost concept.

During the war, it had been pushed aside by revenge, anger, hurt and malevolent urge to spill the blood of the enemy… Reason, truth and honour.

Pride stopped her. What would all her friends think when she told them she cheated her way in? Would they condemn her to a similar fate as she had here? No. Patience would help her to endure the days, hours, minutes, and seconds.

…………………………………………………………………………………………………….

"Hermione Granger? Yes, yes, I have your name here." The prim receptionist nodded.

"Thank you." Hermione smiled as she took the access card and left. The receptionist was too busy shuffling papers to notice that the smile never reached the woman's eyes.

Hermione had received a letter from Mr. Malfoy; he had requested to see her in his office. She, having nothing else to do, obliged.

The days had long since passed when she was working and busy; when her life had meaning. She had helped Potter… helped Harry, find the dark lord; helped them to destroy him, and in turn, themselves.

Grief, they told her, would be healed when she returned to normal life and picked up the fragmented pieces of her life. For many years she tried, honestly tried, to glue all the pieces together, but they always fell apart.

Until she decided not to continue, and simply live for the day when she would die. The irony made her smile in a twisted, bitter silhouette of the grin which once existed.

Upon reaching the office door, she knocked, twice.

"Come in." A cool male voice answered.

She opened the door which swivelled on its hinges with unnatural ease, and looked towards the large black desk. There sat Draco Malfoy.

He was smiling at her, in that utterly annoying sardonic way.

They stood, staring for a moment or two.

At first Draco had thought of teasing her, resorting to the only known way of contact with her. But the moment she walked into his office, he was taken aback by the hollowness in her eyes, the lack of will to live. Her despair simply took his breath away.

"Miss Granger, such a pleasure to see you after so many years." He finally said, cringing inwardly at his own awkwardness.

She inclined her head slightly and stepped towards his desk. "Yes, though it feels like much longer." Her tone matching his.

"Please, take a seat." She sat.

The silence between them stretched and Draco waited for her to sigh impatiently as she had done so many times before. But this woman didn't. She sat staring at him as though she had all the time in the world. Perhaps she did.

"Would you like to know why I wished to see you?" He hinted leaning towards her, as though he didn't believe she could hear him through that thick fog of desolation.

Hermione looked at him, her enemy, the one who had tried to kill them all, and then come back requesting forgiveness. They had given it so freely, knowing that he had changed and wanting to believe that all the evil in this world could be put right again.

For years they may have been on the same side, but they had little contact.

Hermione often doubted his authenticity and sent spies to watch his every move. After a while she began to think, hope, like the others that evil could be tamed; could be taught the right way.

How wrong she had been. The darkness swept throughout the world and although they fought relentlessly, it kept coming back, stronger and in larger forces.

They did win of course, and with the defeat of the dark lord came rejoicing. But for Hermione, the end only brought sadness.

The adrenaline of battle and war had made her numb; she didn't have to feel the pain as her friends all died. As they spoke their last words to her, she didn't have to shed tears and feel her heart tearing into pieces.

But when it was over, she had nothing, no one to comfort her, and all the pain from the years at war came crashing down on her head, she had no shields or barriers to protect her from the impact. They crushed her soul, her heart, everything was broken.

"If you want to tell me, you may." She answered quietly.

Draco smiled "I want to help you."

Help her? He wanted to help her? No one could help her. Not even _him._

"I need no help."

Draco persisted, "I've heard about you a lot these past months, everyone has said the war affected you very badly, and I knew it wasn't because of the killing, the fatigue and the darkness… I know what you feel." He added softly, his entire face showing offering her the comfort she so hungrily wanted.

_flashback_

"_Hermione, you need someone in your life." Harry had said teasingly._

_Hermione punched him lightly on the shoulder "So I won't be in the way between you and Ginny?"_

_Ron entered the room laughing, obviously overhearing their conversation. "I don't think there is anyone who is in the way between them two!"_

_They laughed together and sat back, satisfied at the moment of joy they could have in such dark times._

"_But honestly Hermione," Harry began "you need someone you can look to if we are gone."_

_The silence was deafening._

"_But you won't be going anywhere will you?" She pleaded with her eyes._

"_He's out to get me Hermione; I know he won't stop until I'm gone, an eye for an eye." He replied bitterly._

"_No!" She stood up staring from one to the other, they had rehearsed this, waiting to tell her; prepare her for what was to come._

"_We saw it Hermione," Ron said sadly "it was horrible, but we saw it."_

_Why had they been given the opportunity to see their own deaths? Why had she not been granted the time to prepare?_

"_You can't go! You can't leave me here!" She cried, for the deaths that had not yet happened._

_Harry wrapped his arms around her comforting, "It is early in the war yet, Hermione, we still have time together, we still have time."_

_end flashback_

But they didn't have time. Six months later, Ron was killed. Hermione had already become the shadow of the vibrant girl that once was. She had already shed the tears, felt the pain.

Harry continued to insist she find someone for her, someone to lean on when he was gone and the others died.

She refused to believe him, unwilling to accept Harry's fate; unwilling to accept her fate.

"You do? You know the pain?" She asked, also leaning towards him a little.

Draco saw her eyes imploring into hers, searching for the answers herself.

"Yes, I know the loss, the pain." Draco paused, reflecting on his own losses before continuing, "We can rise through this together."

To Hermione, it felt like a sign, a light had fallen and this was why death had not claimed her. Because he was here and she wasn't alone; she had someone to lean on.

"Draco, do you want to rise out of this?"

"Yes." He said, honesty radiating from his light blue eyes.

"Then we will." She smiled genuinely, it reached her eyes and suddenly he could see the light, the life. "We will come through together."

The shadow was lifted. The fog cleared. The pain was gone.

Hermione stood and at once was the woman she was supposed to be, incredible, and alive.

Draco came around his desk to take her hand.

"It has been a long time Miss Granger." He whispered, face inches from hers.

"It has been too long Mr Malfoy." She replied, her smile coming easily now.

"_That's it Hermione, we knew you would find someone. You need to be happy and live, for us."_ The light voices of her friends spoke gently in her mind, the voices of Harry, Ron, Ginny, Fred, George; from all the people who died to give her this happiness. To give all who had survived this happiness.

"_I will live and do great things, do all the great things you never got the chance to do. I will love and live, I will do it all for us, and for him."_

……………………………………………………………………………………………………….

Ok so obviously it was after the war. I really would appreciate reviews, good or bad, and please read my other fics! Love ya'all!

Crystalcloud


End file.
